Sunday, 7 May 2017

I was feeling slightly crook yesterday and spent several hours reclining in my chair examining the inside of my eyelids. That subsequently proved to be a mistake because I was still wide awake counting sheep at 3.30am. You can count a lot of sheep in five and a half hours. Halfway through I was counting black vs white and shorn vs woolly. Not that it helped! Jan arose at 4am, which just confirms her belief she should have been a farmer’s wife! I eventually managed to grab a couple of hours before rising to discover my tongue must have washed a hamster at some stage in the early hours. Cleaning teeth was the first task for the day.

It rained during the night which meant the roof and port side of Waiouru that had been washed and polished now looks slightly grubby. The starboard side was supposed to get the same treatment yesterday so my enforced break may have had one advantage.

This morning I wandered back to the Biffa bins with yet more food for them. They started squealing and rattling on their wheels the moment I appeared. One look confirmed they were starting to suffer from indigestion. The water tank was topped up and then we reversed back to the junction where we winded and headed north up the Leicester Branch of the Grand Union.

It didn’t take long to reach the bottom of Watford Locks. Jan walked up the flight to find the lock keeper and report in. We’ve now been up and down the flight on several occasions.

I was in a brown stare when I happened to notice the plaque on the end wall of the pump house.

31 seems too early to go!

We moored half a kilometre beyond the top lock so that Jan could have more time to clean the interior of the boat as we’re not in a rush to reach Crick. After lunch I did some preventative maintenance checks on the boat.

Horn

Headlamp

Navigation Lights ??????????

The damned navigation lights weren’t working correctly. One of the major benefits of the Empirbus system is its ability to maintain a log of activity. The laptop was plugged into the system and I looked at the log. Despite me physically pressing the Navigation Light Switch nothing was recorded in the log. The most likely fault was the switch so I removed the inspection panel and felt the wiring terminals. They are crimped spade connectors and one was slightly loose. Just a little pressure was sufficient to resolve the fault.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is looking promising so that starboard side might get the overdue wash and polish.

This blog is about us, Tom and Jan.
After a decade of travelling from 'down-under' every two years to spend a brief few weeks having a wonderful canal holiday we decided to eliminate the travel and do it full time on retirement. In 2011 we moved to the UK and built Waiouru before spending 6 wonderful years cruising.
In 2017 we sold our lovely boat and moved back to Perth, West Australia where other adventures are on the 'bucket list'.